Just an aside before I begin – when the bloggers log into the dashboard to write a new post, we can see the blogs that have been written lately, if there are any new comments, etc. Today, as I was perusing through the new comments, I realized that Fisher Grad Life Bloggers are getting spammed by sites. I find it highly entertaining that we have gone from a site only our families read because they’re our family to being spammed. Of course our blog site is really well set up and all posts and comments are screened before being published so these spam comments will never reach your eyes, but…it is still funny. Also, this is my first official blog with my name changed to Amanda Wenner – shout out to Jason Hart who helped me gain access again after the system had no idea who I was.

Now – onto what I came here to do.

Some of you know that I was a member of the OSU Marching Band for 3 years. I play clarinet, but because the OSUMB is only brass and percussion, I was on student staff. The marching band is essentially run by 14 student staff members: 2 record fund managers (they sell cds and other OSUMB paraphernalia – all of the cds you see in the stores are sold by them), 3 secretaries and 1 librarian (the names speak for themselves), 3 uniform managers and 1 seamstress (all uniforms and pieces are distributed through this office and the seamstress fixes anything that rips and hems all of the pants, etc), 2 instrument managers (distribute all of the instruments and fixes broken instruments) and 2 audio/visual managers (they film all practices and performances, record everything and at the end of the year compile it all for a dvd). Of course there are the 5 directors: 1 director, 1 assistant director, 2 graduate assistants, and 1 percussion instructor. All of this goes together to keep the band running smoothly, like a well oiled machine.

Three years of my life were dedicated to this organization and met some amazing people and had wonderful experiences. Needless to say, I still try to keep up with what’s going on in marching band world. As I was facebook stalking a day or two ago and was looking through the OSUMB’s photographer’s website and realized that the squad leaders had a day-long retreat at the Ohio Union. As a part of their retreat, they had a speaker come in to talk about effective team leadership. And the guest speaker was none other than Fisher’s Tony Rucci. I think it is so cool that my undergraduate and graduate worlds have intertwined themselves. Here’s the link to all of the pictures if you want to browse through them.

For those of you who don’t know who Tony Rucci is, he is a professor in the College of Business, but not before he was an executive with 3 Fortune 100 companies. He was also fairly instrumental in the turnaround of Sears Roebuck and Co. You can also read his FCOB profile here.I really hope I’ll be able to take a course with him before I graduate. I think I’ve planned it out pretty well so that I have room to take an extra class Spring Quarter, so we’ll see how that goes.

But that’s all for now. Here’s a wedding picture, for your enjoyment. Also, congratulations to Megan Heighton (now Mueller) who got married a few weeks ago). Weddings are in the air!